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Ratbat (TF2017)
Ratbat from The Transformers (2017 TV Series). Bio Cold-blooded and obsessed with efficiency, Ratbat's primary concern is looking out for himself. He treats his responsibilities, whether as a fuel auditor or as leader of Decepticons, as a business. In his book, everything comes down to profit and loss. In his role as fuel scout, Ratbat carries sensors that allow him to detect and evaluate the quality of fuels of various types, from primitive hydrocarbons to energon. He can process any number of these different fuels to power himself. Although obsessed with efficiency, like any good CEO, Ratbat allows himself a small indulgence: He enjoys sinking his fangs into the fuel tanks of Terran automobiles, the more expensive the better. He enjoys nothing more than savoring high-test gasoline siphoned from a hapless yuppie's Mercedes or BMW. Ratbat is also the best Decepticon leader ever. History Arc 2 Ratbat was one of the many Decepticons left on Cybertron, where he rose to the critical post of fuel auditor. With a drive towards extreme efficiency, he would rarely countenance unnecessary risks. He was one of the key figures in Lord Straxus's court, and continued to assist the cruel warlord even after the latter had been reduced to a head in a life-support system. Megatron wound up teleported to Cybertron at this time, along with Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons leaked false information to the enemy army that Prime was really a Decepticon spy sent to infiltrate their ranks. Ratbat was tasked to spy on the Autobots to see their machinations play out. Things did not go according to plan, as Optimus escaped an execution squad thanks to the interference of Outback. Unwilling to reveal himself and thus confirm that Optimus was the genuine article, Ratbat reported back to Megatron and Straxus to let them know their scheme had likely failed already. |Under Fire| When Straxus' attempted possession of Megatron saw Straxus dead and Megatron mentally unstable, Ratbat was able to exploit the situation. Convincing the others that Megatron and Straxus were a liability, he had Straxus' troops open the space bridge in front of Megatron, Optimus, and Ultra Magnus, which sent them back to Earth. |Resurrection| Arc 3 Ratbat emerged as the most powerful Decepticon in Polyhex. Ratbat grew increasingly dissatisfied with the inefficient use of fuel by the Decepticons based on Earth under the command of Shockwave, a practice he planned to alleviate by shutting down the space bridge between Earth and Cybertron. The amount of fuel the Earthbound Decepticons had gathered was not remotely equal to the energy required to run the bridge. Regardless, Shockwave appealed for one more use of the space bridge, and blamed the Earthbound Autobots for their lack of progress. To the ends of eliminating them from the equation, Ratbat opened up the Space Bridge in front of the Ark and sent Trypticon through it to destroy them. Though many injuries were inflicted, the arrival of the Dinobots rapidly turned the tide. Trypticon's energy expenses exceeded the budget allowed for the mission, and Ratbat ordered him back. |King of the Hill| With the space bridge deemed too wasteful, Ratbat sent things to Earth via low-energy cost space freighters. However, a particularly important cargo went missing en route to Earth, so he made brief use of the space bridge anyways, in order to dispatch the Triple Changers through to Earth and investigate. |Crater Critters| When the source of the problem turned out to be a deadly plague of Scraplets, he captured the Throttlebots and sent them to Earth to remove the infection with corrosives. He warned them that if they did not succeed within ten hours, he would destroy the Earth to prevent the plague from spreading. Thankfully, water was discovered to be an effective cure. |The Cure| Ratbat traveled to Earth to oversee his designs for the planet. He continued to be outraged at Shockwave's excessive fuel use, particularly when he revealed that Shockwave's Decepticons had recently stolen a fuel tanker after it had unloaded its cargo! Meanwhile, Ratbat's own plans proceeded well. He had placed industrialist G.B. Blackrock under his control, and had him open a chain of car washes that featured rock and roll music and flashing lights, dubbed the "Wash and Roll Car Wash." These car washes hypnotized humans into delivering the fuel they'd pumped back to the Decepticons. However, this plan was discovered by the Autobots' ally Buster Witwicky. After managing to evade Ratbat by fleeing through one of the car washes, Buster was able to awaken the hypnotized masses outside. Ratbat was forced to flee and abandon this particular fuel-gathering method. |Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom| The United States government later captured the Throttlebots and executed them live on television. The Predacons carried Ratbat to the execution location afterwards so that he could ensure that they had indeed been killed. He discovered that their brain modules were missing, and once he had the scent, he tracked down the Throttlebots to Sparkplug Witwicky's garage. When Sparkplug refuse to divulge any information to his troops, Ratbat and the Predacons tore the man's garage around him and continued on the trail. It eventually led them to inside a nearby mall. Here he battled Buster Witwicky once again, and learned that Walter Barnett, before having teamed up with the boy, had snuck the Throttlebots' brains away inside remote control cars. The toy-Autobots proved too crafty to be captured, but mid-chase, Ratbat finally got a good look at Buster's face. Remembering him as the one who foiled his previous plot, Ratbat swooped down to take his revenge, only to have a security gate dropped atop of him. Unable to move in his robot mode, Ratbat waited until Buster had his back turned, transformed, and stowed away in the boy's radio. Though he was briefly knocked out by the boy's rough handling of the machine, Ratbat awakened to find his prey at the Ark's former location. After crushing the toy body of the only Autobot left with him, Goldbug, Ratbat took Buster captive. |Toy Soldiers| |Trial by Fire| |Pretender to the Throne| He brought Buster back to the Decepticons' island headquarters, where he was used as a human shield against military retaliation. The Autobot Targetmasters besieged the base, commanded by Fortress Maximus and Buster's older brother Spike Witwicky, so the Decepticons were forced to flee by deploying the island base's space-travel capabilities. In the process of departure, Shockwave was shot down in space and seen spiraling towards Earth, apparently dying during reentry. Ratbat declared it would be inefficient to rescue him and seized command of the Decepticons for himself. |The Desert Island of Space| Of all the leaders of the Decepticons on Earth few came closer to outright victory than Ratbat. He followed the Autobots under Fortress Maximus when they set out to unite with those under Grimlock and launched an all-out attack that resulted in huge casualties and the Autobots being briefly stranded on the Moon. He retreated only when Grimlock and Blaster returned from their duel and turned the tide. |Totaled| Later, Ratbat promoted the newly recovered Starscream to the position of second-in-command and set out to retrieve an Autobot data disk that went missing hundreds of years ago. To this end, he set down the Decepticons' base back on Earth, disguising it as an island once more, though this time the Decepticons advertised it as an island resort for human vacationers. With the resort drawing attention away from their search, Ratbat had the Seacons secure the Autobots' dormant bodies. But just as the Seacons were about to present their find to Ratbat, a human was able to sneak into their headquarters and snatch the data disk away. Ratbat sent out the Seacons to retrieve them, which they did successfully. |Club Con| Using a Realvision simulator, Ratbat and Starscream reviewed the information encoded on the data disk. The two Decepticons were beholden to an early adventure in Optimus Prime's career, where he fought to keep the powerful Underbase out of Megatron's grasp. The Underbase was ultimately sent out into space by Prime, but with the information encoded on the tapes, the Decepticons came to discover that the artifact was Earth-bound... and due to land planet-side in a matter of weeks! |The Flames of Boltax| Ratbat was determined to attain the Underbase's power for himself, but this ambition was shared by Starscream. The latter lured the separate Decepticon faction led by Scorponok to a meeting with Ratbat's forces, and Ratbat immediately grew to dislike his fellow commander for his partly-organic nature. He nonetheless tried to keep things civil between his troops and Scorponok's, but thanks to Starscream's subtle manipulations, a conflict soon erupted between them. Ratbat realized too late that Starscream had played him so as to get a head start in attaining the Underbase. |Cold War| Trivia *Steven Blum voices Ratbat. Changes *The data disk from Club Con! was originally two mini-cassettes both representing Grand Slam & Raindance, with the cassettes sent to Earth deliberately to warn Optimus Prime of the Underbase. Category:Articles by Trachodon56 Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Decepticons Category:Communications Category:Cassettes Category:Decepticon Leaders Category:The Transformers (2017 TV Series) Category:The Transformers (2017 TV Series) Characters Category:The Transformers (2017 TV Series) Decepticons